


Nuclear Families

by ty_schuyler



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Bobby's there too, Case Fic, Hurt Sam Winchester, Hurt/Comfort, Protective Dean Winchester, Some Plot, wasn't meant to be a case fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-29
Updated: 2018-12-26
Packaged: 2019-07-18 20:34:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 7,578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16126223
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ty_schuyler/pseuds/ty_schuyler
Summary: Takes place after S7 E7 'The Mentalists' and before S7 E8.Basically a case I made up that would be between these two episodes. The Mentalists was the one with the psychics where Sam forgave Dean for murdering Amy, in case that's hard to remember. Sam gets hurt. Dean doesn't take that too well.(God I hate the title XP)





	1. Pain is Temporary

Sam's eyes wouldn't work.  
The blackness shouldn't have been consuming his vision like it was - vast and threatening to swallow him whole. Any regular person would've opened their eyes yet Sam could not, and for this reason his body was wracked with trembles - that and the chill the air left on his skin. He could've been anywhere. The cage with Lucifer and all it's horrors flashed in the dazed hunter's mind before he wheezed.  
The pain careened into him with a vengeance.  
White blazes of fire burst to life in Sam's abdomen - the kind that made Sam cry out before he'd even thought to stop himself. Thoughts got disjointed and muddled with the agony as Sam breathed humid air, one inhale and exhale at a time, even if it hurt, better to focus on that than his stomach. Lucifer must've gutted him, or sent a hellhound to do it instead. Did Sam even want to open his eyes?  
He rolled onto his side anyway.  
The hunter clutched his stomach with clumsy hands, fingers sticky with warm liquid he didn't want to think about, and his eyelids fluttered by themselves. Between biting his lip hard to keep quiet and panting for air Sam couldn't manage much else - his brain wasn't cooperating and the sky was beginning to light up deep orange before him, even if Sam didn't believe the sky existed where he was. His eyes still wouldn't function.  
Everything was now a sea of blurred colours.  
"Sh-IT-!"  
Lightning struck Sam and he couldn't hold it together any longer. He screamed.  
His vision flashed white and his spine jolted up, the knives Lucifer must've been twisting into his gut making Sam howl and beg and cry out for everything to stop. Somewhere deep down he knew it could never end but the child in him was shining through anyway.  
He screamed his throat apart until the pain assaulted him with less force, and the hunter gasped for oxygen like a madman. Sam could practically hear Dean telling him to pull himself together.  
Sam blinked.  
"Dean..."  
Dirt. Sam's cheek was pressed on cold, hard dirt. After some squinting Sam decided that a road cut through the dirt a few feet in front of his face, and overhead the sky a canvas painted orange and yellow. These things grounded Sam to reality, even as his eyelids drooped and his head grew heavier. This wasn't the cage.  
He'd been with his brother.  
Fear ran through the hunter as the pain shot through him again.  
"DEAN!"  
They had been together. Somehow Sam clung to that fact and it spun his psyche out of control - he was in the middle of nowhere bleeding to death, Dean wasn't going to find him, whatever had torn his stomach to shreds was going to come back and finish the job. Sam scrabbled as though his internal organs were falling out and cried out again. This was how Sam Winchester was doomed to die - alone, semiconscious and only thinking about how pathetic it would look to Dean.  
Gravity threw Sam flat onto his back, his nerves ripping themselves apart, and even if the hunter was frantic in holding the blood in his arms were numb. Breathing became difficult. Screams devolved to whimpers.  
"D...Dean...!"  
Sam didn't want to die.  
Not by himself.  
Not when his brother would be looking for him.  
Yet none of that mattered as Sam's eyes closed and his mind failed on him - lost in the abyss with his last thought being that Dean would be the only one at his funeral.


	2. Flesh and Blood

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean drives fast when he's pissed.

"Dean, it's been a week, maybe he just needed some space."  
"Like hell he did! Bobby, I'm telling you, me and Sam - we're good! He had his girly-feelings moment, and then it was fine!"  
Dean sped up, clutching his phone tight to his ear and the steering wheel tighter. Taking his eyes off the road would remind him of the empty passenger seat, and so Dean's stare was fixed forward.  
"Maybe the boy was saying what you wanted to hear," Bobby cracked through the phone. "Wouldn't be the first time you lied to each other."  
There was no reason to drive slow on a highway at that time of night, but Dean had every reason to want to smash something and the device in his hand began to tempt him.  
"Look I know Sam - he lied about Ruby, about the demon blood, but this? Sam couldn't keep his feelings to himself if his life depended on it." Dean insisted.  
"You sure-?"  
"Positive-" Dean eyed the sign that told him Lewisville was twenty minutes away as it whizzed past. "-we moved on from all the Amy crap."  
Bobby seemed to consider this while Dean silently willed the impala to go faster. Sam could be dead in twenty minutes.  
Sam could be dead already but Dean wasn't ready to confront that thought.  
"Just drive safe, would'ya?" Bobby said with a sigh. "I'll ask around, see if anyone's seen him."  
"Thanks."  
Dean hung up and tossed the phone to the back seats. To his greatest annoyance tail lights glowed red in the distance, and after the internal argument where Sam would usually play the voice of reason, Dean had no choice but to slow down. He knew from experience that he was no use to Sam arrested. Then again at that moment he was no use to Sam at all, and this fact made the hunter curse under his breath at his luck.  
The gap between the impala and the trucked closed fast, telling Dean somebody had stopped on the highway of all places. He almost didn't care. Everything else weighing his mind had Dean ready to speed past without looking back. Lewistown was close and if the GPS on Sam's phone could be trusted, that was where Sam would be.  
However a flash of red plaid and the end of a saw off shotgun made Dean break in less than a second. Baby's tires screeched and Dean's head bumped the steering wheel with the force of it but he didn't care.  
"Hey!"  
Dean was out of the car half a second later; pacing with a gaze that could kill to the man crouched by the side of the road. The trick driver turned to look up at him.  
"Holy crap-"  
"I know, I've called for an ambulance, you didn't have to stop." The truck driver was speaking yet Dean's eyes were fixed on the figure lying still at their feet. Dean should be moving. Every fibre of his being was screaming for him to do something, and yet everything was delayed. "I just saw him out here on the side of the road, and I can't get any sense out of him."  
Dean pushed past the man and through the shock, listening to all his instincts that fought to be heard, yet as he got a better view of his brother Dean's stomached curled.  
"Sam?" Dean called, using one hand to brush brown stands from the boy's eyes and the other to place to shaking fingers on his neck. "Sammy don't do this, c'mon!"  
"You know him?"  
Sam's pulse was faint , and his only response to Dean was shallow breathing. Dean brain was whirring with panic, through it all John's training shining through as he started and regretted searching for injuries.  
"Oh God-!"  
If Sam's shirt wasn't red before the blood soaking the fabric did the job - Dean's shaking fingers peeling it away to reveal his destroyed abdomen The skin around the wound was acid yellow with infection and the rest torn to shreds like somebody had tried to gouge his stomach out. A leviathan maybe? The older hunter had never seen a nightmare like it.  
"That's nasty." The truck driver said as Dean rose and rushed to the impala, rooting through the trunk and smashing around half its contents to find the first aid kit Sam had insisted on buying. "Was your friend mauled by a bear, or-?"  
"He's my damn brother, and move-!"  
Dean shoved past and collapsed to his knees by Sam's side.  
"Shouldn't you-?"  
"Shut up or drive away pal." Dean drenched a cloth with rubbing alcohol, dabbing at the wound the way his father had taught. Both him and Sam had been wounded before, been close to death more times than he could count, and yet Dean could never get used to the terror that coursed through him at the sight of it.  
The stinging must've brought Sam around because after a few seconds a dull cry escaped him - a sound that struck Dean's chest.  
"Just suck it up a little longer, Sammy," Dean tossed the rag over his shoulder and wiped his brow. "-you're gonna be just fine."  
Sam's facial features crumpled as Dean piled gauze onto the wound, pressing both hands down hopes that the bleeding would slow in time for the ambulance. The hospital wasn't safe for either of them but seeing Sam at death's door with a wound that severe was making it difficult to justify driving off with him on the backseats.  
"You a doctor or something?"  
The truck driver was now a mere bystander to Dean's fear, and the older hunter pushed the bandages to his brother with his face scrunched up in his own hopelessness. Sam getting through this alive looked more impossible by the second, and Dean swallowed the urge to snap as sirens lit up the skyline in the distance.  
"Something like that."


	3. Shelter in the Storm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As the Winchesters say: Hospitals suck.

Dean had been climbing the walls of the waiting room for hours.  
The sterile smell overpowered him to the point that he could taste it, and if one more doctor gave him a grim expression Dean would smash something - though it was nothing new. The Winchesters couldn’t stay out of hospitals; a sick family tradition that came with being hunters. Between the man in the corner that couldn’t stop fidgeting and the couple hunched together in those uncomfortable plastic chairs like the world was ending – Dean stopped pacing.  
He marched up to the receptionist instead.  
"Can one of you people please explain to me why the hell I can't see my brother?"  
The woman behind the laptop shrunk back in her chair, offering no response outside of faster clicking of her mouse and the inability to make eye contact. Dean sighed. "It- It's just been hours, y'know? He must be awake by now, I just-"  
"Sir,"  
Dean turned to a doctor clutching a clip board behind him - blonde hair scrunched into a bun that refused keep all the strands together, face stern in an expression of impatience Dean had known all too well. Had he not met her under those circumstances Dean would've made some attempt to seem like a stand-up guy, or less of an asshole, yet he couldn’t get distracted.  
"You're the brother of Samuel Hetfield, correct?"  
Dean nodded and opened his mouth to speak, yet she beat him to it.  
"I'm Doctor Hart; I was overseeing your brother's emergency surgery."  
"Just tell me we can get out of here." Dean said, folding his arms to hide how clammy his palms were getting. He picked up on how Dr Hart hesitated with pursed lips.  
"Well - they can't tell what caused the initial damage from the wound alone, but the claw markings on his chest would suggest a bird of prey, or maybe several."  
Dean mind raced through possibilities - he didn't doubt something supernatural must've gotten to him, but nothing was making sense in his head. Birds could’ve killed his brother?  
"Either way the surgeons did what they could, and after a few minor complications, Samuel's condition is stable for the time being."  
At this Dean frowned. "Complications?"  
"Yes, well despite your specific - and considerably loud instructions not to use morphine, the message didn't reach us in time and-"  
At this, Dean saw red.  
"Like hell 'it didn't reach you' – all of those doctors that took him in there heard me!“ Dean stalked to the doors, considering all the hell Sam could’ve lived through in those past few hours. The fire was hard to contain when Dr Hart stepped in front of him. “- Move, I'm seeing my brother right damn now-!"  
"I'm not saying you can't see him, Mr. Hetfield," Dr Hart said, having grabbed Dean's arm before he could shove past. "-just be aware that some of the other doctors had a discussion about his reaction to the morphine, and they've referred him to a physician who-"  
"Lady, my brother hasn't lost his marbles." Dean unclenched his jaw, wrenching his arm from her grip. "-tell your 'physician friend' or whoever that he can go home, okay?"  
“Mr Hetfield, with all due respect-!"  
With that Dean pushed through the double doors before she could spout anymore crap.  
Regret was starting to creep in and wouldn’t cease as Dean paced down the stark white hallway. He should've taken Sam before the ambulance arrived, he and Bobby could've patched him up. No morphine would've been involved.  
Now they were here and Sam was strewn up in a hospital bed in room 16A.  
The room hurt to look at - bleach white walls, bed sheets, the hospital gown - hell even his skin had lost close to all semblance of colour. Despite this Sam lay in an undisturbed sleep- softened features, steady breathing into the oxygen mask - and even if the tubes connected to his arms freaked Dean out, Sam was alive. He was alive and if this was what it took Dean couldn't be too pissed.  
After a moment of checking his brother over Dean took a slow step forward, letting out a shaky exhale as he approached the bed.  
"What happened to you Sammy?"  
There was no reply, not that he should've been surprised. He traced his thumb over Sam's cheek like he'd done so many times when they were kids and sleep was unkind to Dean - even if Sam's skin had never been that ice cold back then. Sam twitched and Dean's hand retracted, the younger hunter letting out a dull whimper as his eyelids flickered. Dean's heart leapt.  
"Sammy?" He took a seat on the edge of the bed, the urge to shake him tempting as Sam stirred. "C'mon Sam, I've been waiting hours here."  
Sam let out a grunt, eyes narrow; unfocused.  
"No... N-No..."  
The slurred mumbles pierced Dean's chest, and it only worsened as Sam tensed - tired eyes darting from wall to wall as though nightmares haunted his vision.  
"Sam - Sammy I'm right here-" Dean grabbed Sam's hand to find the scar on his palm, leaned forward to force Sam to meet his gaze. The younger hunter's hyperventilating worsened by the second - eyes failing to see Dean. "-you're not in hell, or the cage, or anywhere else where everyone wants to kill you, ya hear me? Stone number one Sammy, please."  
Dean kept the tears at bay when his brother tried to yank his hand free, gritting his teeth despite his own trembling.  
The terror was too much.  
"I – I don’t – I can’t-!”  
"Sammy!"  
Sam froze.  
His pupils took a moment to focus, and when they did Dean's bleary eyed gaze greeted his own. Dean searched Sam’s eyes and found his brother’s senses intact. Sam quivered.  
For a moment all the two brothers could hear was their own breathing. Calm in the panic Dean had caught from Sam. The tension left the younger hunter, and Dean let out an exhale he wasn't aware he'd been holding.  
"You with me?"  
Sam blinked his eyes open further, and Dean allowed him the time to collect himself. Even with that, uncertainty plagued Sam's features.  
"I...I think so..." He mumbled.  
At hearing his brother's broken voice, Dean clenched a fist.  
"I can’t wait to find out which of those dumbasses didn’t listen to me - I told them not to use morphine! But doctors man – they’re just - narcissistic pricks who think they know better."  
Sam let out a laugh that devolved to a wince, head sinking back into the pillows. He reached up to the oxygen mask a second later.  
"Hey, maybe you should-"  
"I can breathe, Dean..."  
Still, Dean's gaze didn't leave Sam when reaching up to remove the mask, though Sam's arm made no effort to stay up and his fingers failed to grip the plastic. Sam's eyelids drooped and Dean couldn't remember seeing the younger hunter that feeble.  
"You were pretty banged up back there, you sure you're good?"  
Sam's eyebrows furrowed at this, the same expression he wore during research or doing both his and Dean's homework as kids - even if now it seemed a little lop sided.  
"Yeah, I..." The younger hunter's eyes closed with the grimace still present on his face - and Dean could see him losing the fight with unconsciousness. "I... ngh..."  
"Take it easy," Dean assured, the bed creaking under his weight moving. "-get some beauty sleep and we'll blow this joint when you wake up."  
Sam's facial features screwed up and he shook his head no, though no sound left his parted lips and soon his breaths entered a gentle rhythm.  
Dean wore a sad smile. At least his brother would get enough rest for a change.  
He leaned back. A blanket of quiet crept in to settle over the room, and Dean’s eyes grew heavy as the world slowed. It had been a long night for them both, and despite knowing there wouldn’t be many opportunities for sleep until reaching Bobby’s – his inner paranoid hunter convinced Dean guarding them was his duty.  
And thus Dean sat, and tried not to overthink about the guilt, and sat some more. A yawn escaped him. Every so often Sam would mumble in his slumber, and Dean only hoped his dreams weren’t hellish.  
When it occurred to Dean that a phone call to Bobby would be better than rocking up with semiconscious Sam unannounced, standing up reminded him that he’d been holding Sam’s hand – and when Dean untwined their fingers he scolded himself.  
Hopefully Sam wouldn’t remember to call him a girl later.


	4. Know-It-Alls

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just your average hospital break out with the boys.

Dean’s eyes stung after the long night on watch.  
His mind had drifted to places he couldn’t recall for most of it - brought back by Sam’s incoherent murmurs that made his nose crinkle and eyelids twitch. Everything about the situation felt familiar, and this gave Dean a decent reason to slouch back in his cheap plastic chair. He needed a break. And maybe a beer for mental stability.  
Alcohol brought Bobby to mind, and the phone call that must’ve been hours ago judging by the first streams of sunlight peering through the curtains. Dean had insisted he could drive them. That Bobby should wait at Rufus’ cabin.   
Dean’s foggy head and heavy eyes told a different story, and somehow this only provoked a light chuckle from the weary hunter.  
“Hopefully I don’t get us both killed, little brother...”  
If a car crash was how they both kicked the bucket Sam would torture Dean with his own incompetence in heaven, or… wherever the two of them were headed when the time came. It probably wasn’t worth thinking about.  
The swing of door hinges sparked some life into Dean, though it turned to fire at the sight of all those doctors surrounding his brother.   
“What the hell is this-?”  
Dr Hart led the way with her usual stuck up tone.  
“Mr Hetfield, please wait outside. Your brother is being relocated to the psych unit for further-“  
“Psych unit my ass,” Dean stepped forward to be ceased by a man Sam’s size. The other three doctors removed tubes from Sam’s arms and when that made him cry out Dean jerked in the man’s grip. “You can’t-!”  
“Samuel assaulted a nurse during surgery yesterday, and called her ‘Lucifer’,” This took Dean off guard and Dr Hart took this opportunity to breach his personal space, while a doctor began wheeling Sam’s gurney toward the door. “-He is a danger to himself and others, and while I don’t doubt he’s a good man, it’s in your brother’s best interest to-“  
“It was in his ‘best interest’ not to have morphine dammit!” Dean wrestled his arm from the man’s grip and shoved between the woman and a stirring Sam. It took every ounce of self-restraint not to punch the bitch there and then.   
“Mr Hetfield-“  
When she took a step closer Dean aimed the pistol at her forehead with a growl.  
“Everyone back the fuck off!”  
The nurses fell away from the gurney. Dean waved them to the other side of the room, ignoring their trembling and wide eyes in favour of Sam’s half lidded gaze. Sam – who had suffered hours of Lucifer because some half-assed doctors couldn’t take a hint.  
“Dean... what’s...”  
Sam’s head lolled to the side. It would’ve been a surprise if he could’ve even stayed vertical - walking was out of the question.  
Dean gulped.  
“Nobody - Nobody needs to get hurt here.” Dr Hart attempted to shift closer, raising her shaking arms in surrender. For all of her fear Dean couldn’t lower the pistol. “Just put the gun down and we can-“  
“I’m taking my brother,” Dean paced around the gurney and tugged it halfway out the door, brain whirring with the lack of a plan and exhaustion. “-and if anyone wants to give me their professional opinion, it’ll get you shot in the leg.”  
When he was met with silence, Dean took off down the corridor with Sam's gurney in tow.  
No resistance met him aside from the offside glances from doctors - although Dean shouldn't have been surprised. The gun and the rage weren't easy to ignore.   
Between the fuzzy thoughts and how Dean’s heartbeat rattled his bones life had him amped up to eleven - the fatigue forcing the elder hunter into overdrive which, in turn, made marching down the corridor a nausea trip. It was a hangover gone wrong without the alcohol, but it would take more than that to stop Dean from dragging Sam’s sorry-ass out of there. Dean just had to focus long enough to remember how to find the exit.  
Through the waiting room, past the tear stricken people, down across another hallway, and then Dean was jostling a dazed Sam up and out of the gurney.  
“Dean-? Ngh-!”  
Sam scrabbled to cling to Dean’s military jacket, face pressed into a grimace, and Dean slid the gun in his pocket to stand a chance at holding his brother’s trembling frame upright. The size difference wasn't helping.  
“C’mon sleepyhead, time to go-“  
Yet Sam collapsed from Dean’s grip before he could think to stop it.  
"Crap-"  
“-Easy there, Sam.”  
His brother toppled into someone else's waiting arms and Dean rushed to help with fumbling hands.  
"Bobby, thank God-"  
Bobby hauled Sam up by his shoulders, leaning him into Dean to allow the younger hunter support from both sides, even if the pain never left his face. Either way Dean breathed a sigh of relief at the help, and if there hadn’t been an injured Sasquatch to carry out to the parking lot Dean would’ve hugged Bobby no questions asked.  
Bobby's eyebrows rose as he got a good look at Sam's state.  
“What the hell’re you boys playing at?”  
That explanation would've taken too long. Dean settled for a heavy sigh instead.  
“Freaking doctors.”  
Bobby scoffed.  
“Figures.”  
Dean and Bobby manoeuvred a stupefied Sam out of the hospital and into the impala, the boy clutching his stomach like his life depended on it and Dean tried not to notice and failed miserably. Bobby got into his ‘borrowed car’ in haste and set off with a word about the motel down the street, and Dean drove close behind – cringing every time his brother groaned in the backseats.  
Dean would never get used to seeing his brother in so much pain.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not super happy with this one. :/  
> The next one is actually coming out super soon because this one was going to be way longer but I split it into two chapters instead. Soooo... stay tuned!


	5. Coming and Going

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The boys have some catching up to do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Made some dialogue changes since I don't think I'm great at writing how these characters talk just yet. But I'm trying :')

“Sam?”  
The lingering motel damp in the air was what brought Sam to the brink.  
The smell never changed from place to place. Every motel had an underlying odour that Sam associated with his childhood, and as he registered the warm fingers pressed against his neck Sam could only wonder how long Dean really needed just to check a stupid pulse. Sam was alive.  
His only means of showing it was a dull grunt and a shift of his tired joints, but it was a start.  
“I’m great, thanks for asking.” Dean replied with a laugh.  
A snigger escaped Sam before he could think. Dean must’ve moved fast because the next thing Sam knew the hand was off his neck and prodding his abdomen. The jolts of electricity provoked cries the hunter couldn’t control to his greatest embarrassment.  
Sam failed to raise his hand in protest but still writhed under his brother’s grip.  
“...hurts...”  
“I know Sammy; just try to suck it up.” The blur of beige and green in Sam’s vision moved and the bed beneath them creaked. Motel furniture was always ready to fall apart too. “-I need to make sure we didn’t rip your stitches on the way in here.”  
Despite the sparks stinging Sam’s stomach Dean’s quiet tone helped – in the strange way that it did when Sam had been hurt in the past. It gave Sam something solid to hold onto.  
Dean’s furrowed eyebrows and steady gaze were what Sam saw first when his vision focused, and he watched his brother’s slow hands unwrap the last of the gauze.  
“Alright, your stitches are all good.” Dean sat back with a sigh, eyes finding Sam’s as he discarded the bandages. “How’re you holding up?”  
“Better… I think…” Sam said in true hunter fashion, ignoring Dean’s doubt-filled gaze. “Kinda thirsty…”  
Dean crossed the room a second later and filled a glass with water to Sam’s disappointment.  
“Got anything to take the edge off...?”  
Dean shook his head and Sam cringed, thrumming pain in his abdomen spiking as though to taunt him. Dean’s expression has concern written all over it.  
“Bobby’s on a supply run, this’ll have to do.”  
Sam pushed his heavy body up though Dean had to help him the other half of the way into a sitting position, to the younger hunter’s discomfort. He was helpless. Without Dean in that moment Sam wouldn’t be able to move.  
Sam drank and tried not to feel as pathetic as he was, instead focussed on how the water was heaven on his throat.  
“Thanks.” Sam said, watching Dean collapse into a dining chair a moment later. In that light the bags under his eyes couldn’t have been more visible. “-you look like crap, y’know.”  
“I’m not the one we had to carry in here.” Dean rested his head on his arm, a slight chuckle escaping him at Sam’s signature bitch face. The one that meant Dean was wrong; even if it never made him see sense. "-You get any bigger and I'll break my back next time."   
Dean’s expression held hesitation as his grin faltered, and this got Sam’s attention.  
“Dean-“  
“What happened back there, Sammy?”  
Dean’s outburst took Sam off guard. The emotion in the man’s tone didn’t surface often, and as Sam brushed a tentative hand over the stitches Dean looked away.  
“You disappear for a week and turn up with a freaking hole where your stomach should be, it’s just...”  
“I’ve been worse.”  
“Yeah, well, just because you’ve died before doesn’t mean I’m used to it.”  
Sam watched his brother take a swig of beer, familiar impatience mixed with the concern Dean couldn’t mask. The tense silence that followed was where memories crept up on Sam and the younger hunter couldn’t put off talking about them forever.  
“I don’t remember everything, there was - there was a box I found at the motel-“  
“-in Pennsylvania?”  
Sam furrowed his eyes at such an obvious remark, yet Dean was sat up straight now - eyes widening at the answer.  
“Uh, yeah.”  
This must’ve been the wrong answer. Dean’s face fell.  
“Dude, we’re in Illinois. It’s been a while freaking week.”  
Sam’s eyebrows shot up, a million and one questions racing through his head a moment later that he really didn't need to worsen the headache.  
"Must've been one hell of a night out." Dean tried a failed to make himself laugh, Sam struggling with the memories as nausea crept up his throat. "-you said there was a box?"  
At this, Sam could only nod. The box.  
The box!  
"I picked it up and I fainted." Sam tossed the covers off himself with a wince, shuddering at the loss of heat, and Dean was at the bedside a moment later as the younger hunter made a vain attempt at getting out of bed.  
"Not so fast Samantha, you need to rest-"  
"We need to burn that box!"  
Dean body blocked Sam to keep him in the bed, not that it took much. Sam couldn't stop shivering and his limbs didn't want to move, and all Dean had to do was hold an arm over his chest. The weakness wasn't going easy on him.  
"That box tried to freaking kill me, who knows what'll happen if-"  
"Alright, alright, just slow your roll." Dean sat down on the edge of the mattress, pleading with his gaze. "Me and Bobby can handle one murder box, you need to heal."  
"But-"  
"Don't make me ground you."  
Sam ran a clammy hand through his hair with a sigh, watching Dean's face break into a half smile. The familiar annoyance of Dean winning an argument dissipated as fast as it had come.  
"Fine," Sam gave in, gripping the covers back over his legs. "But I don't know where the box is."  
"Well... when did you last see it?"  
Sam could only shrug.  
"I dropped it when I passed out at the motel, but next thing I knew I was bleeding out on the side of the highway. It could still be in Pennsylvania I guess."  
Dean scratched his chin with a nod, bed creaking as he stood. Sam couldn't put his finger on what he was missing regarding the box, but it felt as though it was right in front of his face.  
“It’s metal, like one of those old timey matchboxes.” Sam pointed out. That sounded right. Probably.  
Dean grabbed his military jacket on his way to the doorway, turning to check on Sam first as though the younger hunter could've vanished in the few seconds they weren't looking at each other.  
"Either way - I’d say the hospital's a good place to start," Hesitation flickered on Dean's face, although it was quick to right itself. ”-just, try not to die before I get back, would'ya?"  
Sam smirked.  
"No promises."  
The door clicked closed and the room was silent.  
Watching Dean leave made Sam yearn to follow, yet the way his eyes stung begged to differ. He was ready to sleep for a week. Longer if he could help it.  
Even though he'd just survived a near death experience at the hands of an inanimate object, the dull motel room with the scratchy sheets felt safe. Or at least it did until-  
“You really shouldn’t get your hopes up y’know.”  
Sam froze.  
Lucifer chuckled and it echoed around the room - around Sam’s head even - but there was nobody else there with him which didn’t help with the fear. Sam clutched his scarred palm hoping to every God imaginable that the now shrieking laughter would stop. He just needed it to stop.  
This seemed to amuse Lucifer more as the syllables raised an octave.  
“Your brother’s screwed, Sammy!”  
Warm liquid stained Sam’s hands but all he could do was press harder. Eyes squeezed shut.  
Head starting to spin as the words struck his heart. Faintly he knew that letting Dean leave was a mistake.  
“You just handed him the bleach and told him to chug without even knowing what you were doing!”  
Motel damp was overrun with the stench of bleach, so strong that it made breathing impossible and all Sam could do was heave in his bed with no results. Dean. Dean was going to die.  
He has to do something. Anything.  
Yet his body wasn’t cooperating.  
Sense abandoned Sam as either the terror or exhaustion decided consciousness wasn’t worth it anymore.


	6. Maternity

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam's not feeling so good.

The motel room was on the average side – beige carpet with patterns faded with age, washed out green papered walls and wooden furniture bordering vintage with age. It was on the small side but Dean was just grateful Bobby had already booked the room when they’d originally gotten Sam out of the hospital.  
Dean stepped back into the room and his eyes found Sam’s unconscious form immediately.  
"How's he doing?"  
Dean closed the door and Bobby looked up from the glow of the laptop screen. The light illuminated the bags under his eyes.  
"Princess is alive, if that's what you're asking." Dean sat on the creaky bed beside his brother's anyway, whether it was out of concern or habit was unclear, but he had to check for himself. "-he was out of it when I got here, probably better that way anyhow."  
"He was seeing Lucifer at the hospital, Bobby."  
Quiet drifted into the room. Of all the atmospheres that day Dean couldn’t help but find this one the most comfortable, watching Sam's chest rise and fall in a gentle rhythm with no hospital staff who could turn on them at a moment’s notice. Just the two people he trusted in a crappy motel room.  
After deciding Sam was in the best condition he could be given the circumstances, Dean sighed.  
"They gave him morphine for fuck's sake. Doc' told me he freaked and sucker-punched a nurse."  
When Dean looked over he found Bobby's eyes filled with pity, like a father with bad news for his child.  
"That wall inside his noggin’ might not hold if you boys stick around.” Bobby pointed out.  
The idea had crossed Dean's mind already and he couldn't bear the thought of it. Every time there was even a possibility that Sam had scratched that wall raw fear struck Dean and all instincts told him to get the hell out of there, yet he had to face the reality of the situation.  
"The next time Sam leaves this room we're headed straight outta town - trust me - but right now I wanna make sure he has his strength back before we make our next move." Dean explained, putting on his best 'I know what I'm doing face' and sitting up straight as though to confirm his own words.  
Bobby could see straight through it.  
"Sam ain't gonna like that."  
"Well he'll just have to deal."  
The matter wasn't pressed further to Dean’s relief, since if it had been he would’ve snapped and none of them needed that right now. Instead Bobby did what he always did after a hard day - took a swig of beer and tossed Dean a bottle.   
Dean hadn't realised how much he'd needed it until then.  
"Thanks."  
Between sips Dean filled Bobby in on what little of Sam's story he knew, even if there wasn't much to tell. He explained sneaking into the hospital but finding no box - and as he mentioned it Dean placed Sam's wallet and phone on the nightstand beside where Sam slept. In the haste of the hospital breakout his brother's belongings had completely slipped Dean's mind until passing them in the hospital's store room.  
"We thinkin' cursed object?" Bobby suggested as Dean ended his explanation. Dean sighed.  
"It has to be, but if it wasn’t at the hospital some jackass must have it."  
Bobby closed the laptop before getting to his feet, and even through his own tired eyes Dean could tell that the older man needed rest. He'd probably driven all night just to be there for them.  
Bobby sighed.  
"Either way it's getting late, and I didn't fork out for two rooms for nothin'."  
Dean watched the elder hunter open the door and made a mental note to pay Bobby back later, flashing him a smirk.  
"What, you're not sticking around for the slumber party?"  
"You wish.” Bobby flashed a grin, and Dean returned it. “I'll be in room 306 if your asses need saving again."  
"Roger that."  
Bobby left the room and Dean couldn't help but chuckle to himself at the thought. He turned back to find Sam in the same position as before, draping the blanket over his limp form. Despite everything Dean could still tuck his brother in like they were kids.  
It helped to ease the nagging fear in his chest.  
"Alright Sammy, you have my permission to sleep for a week – just… pull through this one. Please.”

-

"N...No..."  
The first time Dean could've sworn he'd imagined it.  
He must've been dragged back to consciousness by echo from a dream he couldn't remember. Palming the duvet and tugging it over himself, sleep deprived Dean was ready to sink back down into his dreams until long past the sun coming up.  
"No... Please...!"  
This got Dean's eyes open a crack.  
The room was in twilight with only shadowed outlines to make sense of, yet as Dean blinked he picked up on movement that got his attention. Instinct had Dean grip for the gun under his pillow only to stop himself. Sam's choked cry pierced his chest.  
"Dean...!"  
Instead Dean opted for flicking the bedside lamp on.  
"Sammy?"  
Dean pushed himself up upon seeing Sam writhing against the bed sheets - breathing ragged like the air wasn't enough and features scrunched up in pain, yet his eyes were closed and so he could've been seeing anything in that moment. Dean didn't hesitate in taking Sam by both shoulders.  
"Sam, Sammy it's time to wake up now - y'hear me?" Dean insisted, shaking his brother when the only response was a low whine. "Sammy!"  
Worst case scenarios wouldn't leave Dean the hell alone and Sam sounded like his lungs were ready to burst. Dean didn't know if this was the wall coming down or some Lucifer night terrors but what he did know is that he had to get his brother awake: and fast.  
"Dean-!"  
His tone had never made him sound so fragile.  
"Sam, hey c'mon Sam, come back to me!"  
Dean hauled Sam's dead weight up and cupped a hand to his burning cheek, the younger hunter trembling and twitching in a way Dean hadn't seen before.  
“Sammy!”  
He was just about ready to throw his brother under a cold shower when-  
"DEAN!"  
Sam's hazel eyes snapped open with a wheeze.  
"There ya go Sammy, I gotcha."  
Sam shared the likeness of a wounded animal as he choked down oxygen, and Dean couldn't help but feel powerless to stop it. The boy in Dean's arms couldn't stop quivering.  
"M’okay…” Sam breathed, eyebrows furrowing in confusion at how quiet it sounded. “M’okay Dean...”  
“Yeah right.”  
In his half dazed state all Dean could do was act on instinct - pulling his brother into a tight embrace. The burning panic began to diminish as fast as it had came and all Dean could do was let out a sigh, tactile comfort assuring him that Sam hadn’t gone anywhere just yet.  
“I’m not’a kid... y’know...”  
Despite this sentence Sam’s heavy head still dropped to his brother shoulder, and all Dean could muster was a tired laugh. His brother’s sanity was still intact.  
That’s all that mattered.  
“Okay Sammy.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ehhhh this one's okay I guess


	7. Safety First

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m not happy with this but I aim to just finish this work and move on and learn from my mistakes hopefully.

Bobby showed up at their room early.  
He hadn’t asked why Sam was so quiet or why Dean wouldn’t stop giving him side glances, knowing his boys and understanding that this had shaken them both up more than your average injury had. Instead Bobby handed Dean the bag of diner food as he sat on the bed next to him, settling on eating and getting their strength back as opposed to asking questions.  
“Bobby, you’re a freaking saint.” Dean mumbled between mouthfuls of bacon, Sam cracking a smile behind his coffee cup that set Bobby’s mind at ease. “Find anything?”  
Bobby nodded, putting down his burger in exchange for the laptop from the table.  
“Last night they found some other poor sonvabitch down by the highway.”  
Sam almost choked, yet Bobby had to continue.  
“He wasn’t as lucky as Sam, cops found him this morning, but look at this-“  
Bobby turned the screen around for the brothers to see.  
Horror haunted Sam’s features and Dean stopped eating at the sight of the image.  
“Geez, he looks just like-“  
“I know.” Bobby peered around at the picture of the man in his mid thirties with a mop of hair similar to Sam’s, closing the laptop a second later. Sam was still at a loss and it probably wasn’t helping. “He’s Sam’s age and height n’ all. Cursed objects don’t tend to have a type.”  
“So... a ghost?” Sam took another swig of coffee for stability, trying to ignore the ache in his stomach that was beginning to amp up. That could’ve been him had Dean been minutes later.  
“We need to get there fast - see if we can get our hands on this box.” Dean said, swallowing the last of his bacon. “Hopefully it wasn’t stolen by another Sam clone.”  
Dean got his suit together and headed into the bathroom to change, Bobby already dressed and so opting to finish his own breakfast while he waited. When Sam braced himself on the bedside table and pushed back the blankets Bobby couldn’t miss his stifled cry.  
“Me and Dean can handle this one Sam.” Bobby said, leaning forward to put his food down as Sam swayed where he sat. The boy was still as stubborn as ever, shaking his head with a wince.  
“I’m good-“  
“Like hell you are!” Dean called, poking his head around the doorframe in time to see Sam slip from the bed and topple into Bobby’s waiting arms. “Sam!”  
“I got him, don’t worry about rushin’.” Bobby told Dean, back creaking as he hauled Sam back up onto the bed. Even if Sam was trying his damnedest to hide it the pain had his features scrunched up and breathing ragged. “You can’t be doin’ this to yourself, kid. You had surgery two days ago, ya don’t just bounce back from that.”  
Sam grunted in response as he eased back against the headboard, and Bobby could only see the shame in his eyes right then. The boy in front of him had been taught that well-being always came second to the job and that hurt to remember.  
So when Dean practically fell out of the bathroom with his pants on backwards Bobby couldn’t help but stifle a laugh, taking any excuse to forget the sorrow.  
“Did he rip the stitches? What happened?”  
Dean’s searched his disgruntled brother for injury with eyes wide, only stopped when Bobby smacked him over the back of the head.  
“He just fell, ya idjit. Get back in there and get dressed like a grown ass adult.”

~

Being left behind sucked.  
Sam was usually the research guy, but when he was stuck on research because he couldn’t make it two steps out of bed it hurt. Uselessness stung more than anything else.  
He could see in the way Dean kept checking on him that there were hints of distrust there, too. Lucifer hadn’t came up in awhile and now that he had again Dean wasn’t going to let it go. No matter how much Sam insisted it had been the morphine messing with his head.  
Which only added to the pain of being by himself.  
Sam had been clicking through the police reports on autopilot for quite some time just beating himself up, until pounding on the door rattled him from his thoughts.  
“Police, open up!”  
For a moment the air wouldn’t leave Sam’s chest.  
“We’re here about gunman at the hospital, open up!”  
This moment was short lived as he threw the laptop and covers off himself, knowing he didn’t have much time and cursing Dean for being so trigger happy. It was going to be the death of both of them.  
The rapping on the door wasn’t stopping and Sam could only struggle to push up off the bed - his stomach pain tearing him a new one as he staggered into the wall hunched over. Either way he had to move.  
They’d probably take him in regardless, even if Dean had been the one with the gun, and Sam wasn’t ready to make everything more complicated.  
Sam grabbed his phone from the side table as he toppled to the ground with a thud, head still reeling from the day before and stomach exploding with fresh agony. He could only hope to god the stitches would hold as he rolled under the bed.  
The knocking evolved to banging that Sam could only assume was the door being kicked down, and his brain wouldn’t stop whirring as he fumbled to get the phone in his hands to do what he wanted it to. His vision was wavering and he couldn’t figure out when that had started or why but what he did know was that it was taking everything for him not to scream with the uncomfortable way he was lying on his stomach.  
Dean’s contact swam across his vision and the young hunter’s head thumped to the carpet, leaving Sam to only hope he’d clicked it before the phone slipped between his fingers. His vision tunnelled, the smashing of the door far away, and all Sam could do was breathe through the pain as the door groaned and gave way.


End file.
